Belly launched in August 2011 and has 200,000 active users and 1,400 merchants in its network. The company's digital loyalty platform provides a single card, available in physical form or via a mobile device, that can be used at all participating businesses. Consumers scan their card at a dedicated iPad, which is typically set up at the cash register, and receive points for their visits. Businesses determine the kinds of rewards that can be earned at varying point levels.

Belly is in Chicago; Austin; Washington, D.C.; Phoenix; and Milwaukee and Madison, Wis. It just launched in New York City and Boston. In early April, the company said it had raised $2.875 million to date from Chicago-based Lightbank and Silicon Valley Bank of California. The fresh $10 million from Andreessen Horowitz is considered a Series B investment round. Andreessen Horowitz, which also invested in Chicago-based daily deals company Groupon, was co-founded by Marc Andreessen, who is one of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's most famous tech alums. He helped create the Mosaic Web browser and co-founded Netscape.

Jeff Jordan, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, will join Belly's board . He said he was introduced to Belly by Lightbank co-founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell, who were also early backers of Groupon. Jordan said the venture capital firm was impressed by Belly's management team, as well as their product and first-mover advantage.

"The product execution was pretty elegant," said Jordan, who was formerly chief executive at restaurant reservation service OpenTable and president of PayPal. "The iPad at retail just sits there and blinks with a 'come use me' dynamic. It cuts through the clutter."

The loyalty space is competitive, with many startups vying to sign up merchants for their platforms. Jordan said "the winner here is the person that gets the most merchants fastest," and Belly has signed up a large number of merchants in a short span of time.

Belly founder and CEO Logan LaHive said the investment from Andreessen Horowitz and the addition of Jordan to his company's board, "particularly for an early-stage startup in Chicago, is incredibly validating." The company has more than 50 employees and continues to hire as it makes investments in technology, LaHive said.

"We're laser-focused on trying to help these small businesses foster better relationships between (themselves) and the customers," he said. "We do that really by custom-tailoring the program and providing all the tools they need to execute a digital loyalty solution. We're super excited about rolling that out."